


Force_Quit

by PotatoKing



Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Action, Fluffy bits, Gen, Hunters have no chill, I'm so so sorry, I'm sorry my son, Journey to the center of the Hellmouth, Neither do warlocks, OC-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 21:32:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6094681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PotatoKing/pseuds/PotatoKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An expedition into the Hellmouth goes awry amid a web of conspiracy and paranoia. Meanwhile, Garrus-42 searches for a decent night's sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Force_Quit

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: I don't own Destiny or the characters, they belong to Bungie (Except for my OCs). Rated M for language. (Naughty, Myrtle)

//Initiate_startup//  
{Time – [3:45 AM]}  
STATUS:  
-Visual processors=97%  
\--Audio receptors=84%  
\---Servo motors=99.3%  
\----Long-term Memory: [ERROR - FILES MISSING OR CORRUPTED]

Garrus-42 woke up. Well, as much as it’s possible for 200 pounds of war-machine to wake up. The Exo might've been been painted white once upon a time, but traveler-knows how long out in the wilds had worn his paint down into near non-existence, save a few patches here and there. Still a little fuzzy from the reboot, he slowly made his way into an upright position. The lights were still fading into existence, revealing a meticulously kept cot in a sea of other guardian’s mess. “Ghost?” he mumbled, unsure of what ungodly hour this was and why he was awake during it. “Time?”  
“It’s 3:45 a.m. local time, guardian.” Ghost replied, chipper as ever.  
“M’Kay. Second question: why the hell am I awake now?” the hunter asked, slowly coming to.  
“The Vanguard are giving a briefing on an expedition into the Hellmouth. They were interested in having you give your two cents, as it were, in light of last week’s incident.” Ghost replied.  
_You fall into a nearly unending chasm ONE TIME and you never hear the end of it…_ Garrus thought to himself as he slipped his boots on. 

Twenty minutes later he was one of eighteen guardians standing around the war-table, staring at a map of what looked like Satan’s butthole. Zavala was giving his latest rousing (read: rambling and unnecessarily lengthy) speech on correct tactics, and Garrus could’ve sworn he saw glimmer changing hands. Eventually, Zavala finished and Cayde got started on the actual briefing.  
“Teams one through three will be entering the Hellmouth here, here and here.” The exo pointed to three points around the hole as he said so. “Team four will be on rezzes and emergency Blink duty. Those on team four that don’t have a crest already will be permitted a loan from the armoury.” His demeanour turned briefly serious. “Those things are expensive, so… try not to die out there.”  
Ikora continued. “This mission’s purpose is to both collect samples for testing and to gauge the extent of the Hive’s power on the moon. We don’t know much about what’s down there, except for two accounts: Eris Morn’s, and Garrus-42’s. Given the more…recent nature of Garrus’s encounter, we’ll be basing our operation primarily off of his intel. If you’d be so kind?” She said, gesturing to him.

Garrus stepped forward, and took a pen from off the table. “The bottom isn’t the hard bit. The Hellmouth is, according to Ghost, almost as deep as the moon itself. At the bottom is nothing special except for what’s left of my climbing gear from getting out. On the way down are several balconies that lead off into who-knows-where. Any of those would be good places to start. The other thing to remember is that this isn’t the moon as you know it; The Hive have absolute power down there. Your light is all that’s going to be keeping you alive, and any discharge would be comparable to tearing off your helmet in deep space while holding a giant neon sign that reads ‘Hey, here we are! Come kill us!’.”  
“Thank you, Garrus. We’ll be leaving at first light. You have approximately…” Ikora checked her wrist. “two hours to make the appropriate arrangements. Light be with you, guardians.” With that, the briefing was over. Garrus started to file out with everyone else to get to the vaults, but a firm hand on his shoulder stopped him cold in his tracks. “I’m afraid you’re not going to be on this mission, Garrus.” Ikora’s voice would’ve sent chills down his spine if he’d had a nervous system.  
“Pray tell why not?” Garrus asked, giving his best impression of gritting his teeth.  
“Because you and Eris are the only ones who’ve been down there, you two are on comm duty, coordinating the teams.” Ikora replied.  
“Then who’s the eighteenth? Four teams of six, there were only seventeen there without me.”  
“We’ll find somebody.” She said. And with that, Garrus left.

***

Garrus met Myrtle at the Wall. It wasn’t an odd statement to hear made; It was simply a statement of fact. The two had been meeting out there since the ruddy thing had been built, practically. The City seemed so small up there, and yet, so big. Myrtle's purple skin seemed to glow in the afternoon sun; Then again, it's entirely possible that it actually did. Her pale hair was usually tied back to allow for her helmet, but here she wore it loose.  
“So that’s it then? You’ve just been benched?” Myrtle asked, feet swinging against the edge.  
“Pretty much. Hey, can you do me a favour down there?” Garrus asked, nearly falling off the side.  
“Sure. What is it?” She asked, concerned. She’d always been worried about Garrus after the Gap. They’d both lost good friends that day.  
“Keep an eye on the Warlocks, ok? It’s probably nothing, but…” Garrus trailed off.  
“You don’t trust Ikora?” She asked. It was more a statement than a question.  
“Something like that. I can understand her benching Eris; she was down there for years, and that does things to a person. But I was down there for all of half an hour after I reached the bottom. I barely saw anything. The only reason she’d bench me is if she needed me not there.”  
“That, or you’re just being paranoid. But yeah, I’ll keep an eye on them. Look after Merlin while I’m gone” she said, hauling herself off the railing. Garrus chuckled.  
“Don’t worry. That bird’ll outlive us all.” He called as she walked away. _Try not to jinx it_ , he mumbled to himself.

***

“Team one in position.”  
“Team two, in position.”  
“Team three in position.”  
“Team four, standing by for horrific failure.”

It was an odd feeling, Garrus reflected as he stood over the map, only being able to piece together what was happening from the comm chatter and the trackers. He saw teams one, two and three dropping down over the lip and into the abyss. There was a brief and worrying moment of static after the initial descent, but the signal reacquired and it sorted itself out. A comm crackled into life. “Team one, reporting in” Myrtle said. Garrus scrambled to pick up the transceiver. “This is Vanguard, go ahead team one.”  
“We’ve landed on one of the balconies. Teams two and three kept going, decided they’d cover more ground if we split up.” Myrtle started.  
“Did no-one tell them that that has literally never ended well?” Garrus asked, Eris having decided that for the time being, she was free to continue about business as usual.  
“Funnily enough, that did come up. I think the general consensus was that we just spelunked into Satan’s butthole, we can’t exactly get more fucked.”  
“Language, Myrtle.” Garrus said instinctively. Everyone in the room stopped and stared.  
“Did a hunter just tell someone off for language?” Ikora asked slowly, bewildered. “I never thought I’d see the day.”  
“Before I go, I just want you to know that if I survive this, you are never living that down.” Myrtle laughed.  
"Make sure there's someone left to make fun of me, eh?" Garrus was nearly laughing with her at this point. 

About ten minutes later, Myrtle called back in.  
“We’re in what looks like a ritual chamber of some sort. There’s a big table in the middle, and I don’t think it’s the kind of table they use for family dinners.” she said nervously. It was at this point that Eris decided to chip in.  
“Are there any sigils around the side of the table?” she asked.  
“Yeah. There’s…one that looks kinda like a crosshair, there’s a whole bunch of what’s either roman numerals or tally marks, and one that looks like…I think that’s supposed to be the Traveler.”  
Eris went pale. “Get out of there.” she said firmly, knuckles turning white.  
“What? Why?” Myrtle started.  
“That, guardian, is a summoning table. Its purpose is to summon specific elements for hive rituals. Everything from a certain cluster of atoms in an Ogre to a shard of the Traveler, and that’s not even the dangerous part. In order for that table to work, that room is Purified.”  
“That sounds bad. What does that mean and what do we do?”  
“It means that the room you are in has been cleansed of all light. Your presence there is probably enough to send off all _kinds_ of alarm bells for them down there. If they haven’t come crawling down to look for you, that means you are very lucky indeed. It means you have a chance to do what I never could. _Run_.”  
Hearing those words from Eris wasn’t something Garrus had ever expected. Eris didn’t run away as a rule. It took the death of her team before she even retreated, let alone ran away scared. Myrtle seemed just as confused.

“Just…run away? And leave this thing here? Shouldn’t we try to destroy it?”  
“With what? You don’t have anything strong enough to make more than a dent in it, only grenades, which will let the Hive know you’re down there. And if the Hive know you’re down there, they will _kill you_. Properly, this time.”  
“Fair enough. Wait…Johnson, what are you doing? Put that down. That’s not funny. Drop i-Holy Crap. Johnson, what the hell did you just do?”  
“Wait, what did he do?” Garrus asked over the kerfuffle on the other end.  
“Johnson just threw a fusion grenade at the table. I’ll call you back, we’re about to have company.” Myrtle hung up.  
Garrus was already running out the door.

Meanwhile, Myrtle was dealing with her own private slice of hell the only way she knew how: delegating. “Powers, you’re in charge of clearing a path. Johnson, you pull up the rear, cover our retreat. And…I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?” she asked, reaching a titan that towered almost a full two heads above her.  
“Athena-3, Defender. Firebreak order, 3rd division.” The titan replied.  
“Athena-3. Huh. Tell me, Athena. Are you good at making things go ‘boom’?” Myrtle asked, smiling under her helmet.  
“As a matter of fact, I am.” she replied.

And that's when everything went to shit.


End file.
